Swimming against the tide

Compatibility. It is an issue that is close to my heart. As a current user of Linux and a former, and still occasional, user of Macintosh computers, I regularly come head-to-head with the so-called compatibility offered by software and hardware vendors. The realisation that I have come to over the past 10 years or so is that while there is a lot of lip-service paid to the issue of compatibility, in reality the exact opposite is true.

No matter how frustrating it becomes to be constantly swimming against the tide, I don`t plan on changing my choices in the near future.

Alastair Otter, journalist, ITWeb

Speaking recently to a number of bank representatives about their online banking services, what should have already been very obvious to me became incredibly clear: it is the majority that dictates the services banks offer and not the desire to provide services that are geared to all users, irrespective of their operating system preferences. Almost without fail, each one said that as soon as other operating systems showed significant growth, they would consider implementing services for them. Until then, however, the status quo remains.

What they don`t say, however, is how many of the "majority" users are forced into using the Windows/Internet Explorer combination just so that they can enjoy the benefits of online banking.

To be fair, it is not only the banking sites that discriminate against "non-standard" users. The list of Linux-unfriendly sites, for example, grows daily, and as more and more people become convinced of the dominance of Windows, there seems little chance of that ever changing.

Of course, I would be remiss at this point not to concede that even ITWeb suffers from a certain degree of Linux-unfriendliness, as much as it shames me to say it. Of course my only hope at the moment is that most of the problems have been ironed out so that at least this opinion of compatibility is viewable by Linux and Macintosh users.

Taking the compatibility issue a step further, consider hardware vendors. How many products have you seen on the shelves of your corner computer shop that openly admit to supporting the Linux and Macintosh operating system? Most likely you can count the number on one hand.

And it is not that many of the products are not compatible with these types of systems, it is just that most companies prefer to begrudgingly admit to catering for other operating systems at the back of the "Quick Start Guide" and then advise users of Mac, Linux, Free BSD, OS, etc, systems to please contact their nearest representative for a copy of the required software. Or better still, point them to a Web site on which, instead of text, there are a collection of flash elements, forcing users to download a plug-in before they can access the software they need.

A good case in point is the makers of PCMCIA cards. The list of Linux-supported modem and network cards is extensive and most use a common package that is freely available on the Internet. The question is why the manufacturers don`t just include the package as part of the deal. Perhaps the market for Linux laptops is small, but to be honest, it is a quick way to make at least a portion of your market have confidence in your product.

The biggest obstacle, however, is how one goes about buying a PC without the dominant operating system already loaded on it. How many potential customers have walked into a branch of a major computer retailer and asked for a PC with Linux loaded on it? Or at the very least without any operating system loaded on it? Obviously not very many judging by the kinds of looks it elicits. You`d swear that you had just asked them to sell you a stolen car, and in most cases, the answer is a flat no. It is not that I can`t just replace the installed operating system with my own choice as soon as I get home, but I do object to vendors trying to force me into buying a product for which I have no use.

So why put myself through this frustration? Because I enjoy using Linux and I still have great faith in my Macintosh computers, both of which are still in regular use close on 10 years down the line. And no matter how frustrating it becomes to be constantly swimming against the tide, I don`t plan on changing my choices in the near future. The world may well wake up to the need for true cross-platform compatibility sometime in the future, but for the moment I will just have to battle on.